Do parents favor natural children over adopted ones?

Cinderella's stepmother was cold and wicked. The dangers of being raised by such uncaring non relatives recur in folklore around the world. Yet, there are good reasons for doubting the implication that we can only really love children who are our own progeny. Although remarriage of a father or mother can have bad consequences for children, when a couple adopts a baby unrelated to either of them its prospects are much brighter.

The Cinderella effect is well substantiated in crime data. Children growing up in step families are about 40 times as likely to be abused and 140 times as likely to be murdered as children growing up with both natural parents (murder still being a low probability) .

Two recent studies help to clarify the issue of how well adoptive children are treated. The first, published in 2007, found that children in adoptive households are treated better than children in homes with two genetic parents. Adoptive parents were more likely to provide computers for their children, more likely to eat meals with them, and more involved in sports, science projects, and so forth. This falsifies the fairy-tale claim that parents cannot treat genetically unrelated children as well as their own kin.

Still, adoptive parents are an usual breed, that are carefully chosen by adoption agencies for kindness, and commitment to children, as well as stable employment. Perhaps these factors tip the scales against natural parents.

The second study, by anthropologist Kyle Gibson, was explicitly designed to get around such problems and studied homes having one natural child and one adopted child using records provided by an adoption agency for adoptees over 22 years.

Once again parents invested more in the adopted child than in own offspring. Adopted children were more likely to attend preschool and to receive private tutoring. Adoptees had a better chance of receiving cars and personal loans. Parents also spent more time at their sports events.

The findings raise three key questions. First, why did parents favor adoptees over kin? Second, how could such a tendency have slipped through the net of natural selection? Third, why are stepchildren at so much higher risk of parental abuse than adoptees are?

According to Gibson, the likely reason that parents invested more in the adopted children was that they needed more help - possibly for genetic reasons. Adopted children did worse in school, had more problems with alcohol and drug addiction, had more arrests, and were more likely to receive welfare. Evidently, parents invest more in adopted children not because they favor them but because they need more help.

As to why human parents have no defense against nurturing non relatives, it can be argued that adopting non relatives is an artificial consequence of modern environments. In the distant past, our foraging ancestors were likely to be fairly closely related to any unattached babies they encountered and so evolved no defense against investing in non relatives.

Finally, on the issue of why step-parents behave so differently from adoptive parents, it seems that there are conflicts of interest whereby the step parent cares for unrelated children as a means of wooing the natural parent with a view to having children of their own. Jealousy may ensue as children vie with the step parent for the affection of the biological parent. Step families are thus formed as a result of high mating effort whereas adoption selects parents capable of high investment in children and couples who work better as a team because their loyalties are not divided.

Step families may be formed following divorce and therefore involve persons who are less agreeable or more aggressive. The fact that stepchildren are often first encountered in childhood rather than infancy may also make it harder for the step parent to form a bond with them. Adoption generally involves infants.

Whatever the reasons for the Cinderella effect, it is now quite clear that it is not triggered by a lack of genetic relationship. After all, adoptive parents take better care of children than birth parents do. It seems that caring for children, related or not, involves a deep human need that is better satisfied by adoption than step-parenting.

My parents adopted my sister two years before they had me. For years, I didn't get it. Well, I certainly do now! My mom favors my sister, my grandmother favored my sister, and my aunt favored my sister!! My aunt just passed away, and who gets everything she had? Guess! When my mom dies, who will get everything she has? Guess!You can conduct all the research you want, and folks who have never experienced this will never understand how it feels. My husband doesn't understand how it feels, but I'll try to explain it...when my aunt died, my mom and my sister and her girlfriend (or wife, whatever she is) had this big meeting at my aunt's house, with her will in hand...the dyke comes over to my mom's house and tells me, "Here, we found a pair of Janice's shoes we thought you might like." There it is, folks! All I was worth to my aunt was a lousy damn pair of shoes that are too big!? Favortism sucks, folks. If you have children and are considering adoption, fine. But don't show favortism. It's not fair!!!!

If an adoptive parent has no other children, it is a toss-up. Some parents are wonderful, smart, and supportive while others are total losers. If the adoptive parent has biological children, if the parent like themselves, they will be biased favorably towards their biological children and blame all "shortcomings" of the adopted child on the "real" mother.

"Still, adoptive parents are an usual breed, that are carefully chosen by adoption agencies for kindness, and commitment to children, as well as stable employment. Perhaps these factors tip the scales against natural parents".

How about the fact that adoptive parents are in fact self-selected as a opposed to step parents who simply have to accept the child(ren) of the new partner?
What about the adjustment EFFORTS the step parent has to make as opposed to the adoptive parent who begins the connection from a much "priveledged" stage - infancy?

Right... the author makes it sound like adoption agencies are actively recruiting adoptive parents, when in reality, it is the parents who contact an agency. This is "pie in the sky" BS and does not reference other research that shows many adoptive parents have not dealt with their own losses. I've come across MANY adoptees who will tell you that their adoptive parents were looking for someone to love THEM... and were personality disordered with addiction issues. I don't know many adoptees who had nearly the life their birth parents hoped for when they relinquished them for adoption.

This is nonsense "research" to prove a point. It compares apples and space ships: actual statistics of children abused and murdered in step-parent homes to platitudes about computers and soccer games. That's a preposterous to try to draw any conclusions Where are the abuse statics in adoptive families? We know that adopted children are beaten and abused, sexually and physically, put in cages, burned, starved, and KILLED by their adopters. 14 Russian adoptees alone since 1999 have been murdered by those entrusted with their care.

And - as for adoptive parents being screened or selected for kindness I am truly laughing out loud! The only self-selection is the ability to PAY! Children have been placed in the homes of pedophiles - in one case a man who didn't even have a separate bed for the child - who were able to pay the fees!

Adoptions are closed and wrapped in secrecy and until we make them transparent and collect real data on abuse all we will have is scattered case evidences of those few who get to court and make the headlines.

One also has to look at the highly disproportionate number of children in all kinds of institutions - thrown away by their adopters. Bad blood or a failure to meet the expectations of the price tag combined with lack of any counseling to prepare adopters of what to expect.

There is no substantiating evidence to indicate that adoptees academic difficulties can be attributed solely to genetics. They suffer from identity confusion and feelings of abandonment that stem from trying to understand why they were let go and adopted. Adoption itself causes many problems, it is far from a panacea and thus separated children form their families should always be a last resort after all efforts to keep them together have failed....like divorce.

I adopted a tween female several years ago and I still feel no bond with her largely in part because we found out THREE years later (by accident) that she was diagnosed with an attachment disorder when she was 10 years old. The "system" held back important information from us so that she would be "presentable" for adoption. We are in very intensive therapy with her, but I think it's probably too late. She will enter the world as an adult with serious mental healh issues. I'm amazed (by my own experience and those of others I know who have adopted) at how poorly adoption agencies prepare potential parents for the real adoption experience AND withold information. I would have never adopted THIS child with the diagnosis she had. She is incapable of bonding with us and is so unlikeable that we can barely co-exist. Sadly, although we are not the right family for her to meet these needs, we cannot place her back in the system for a more appropriate placement because we could be charged with abuse/neglect and could lose our respective jobs as a result. Adoption is a sham as it currently exists.

Yes, you should have had full disclosure from the agency but how very sad your statement is. What if this was your biological child?? Would that make a difference? Would you still feel that "you were not the right family?" Would you have put a child up for adoption under those circumstances? What is presentable in this day? Perfection to you? What if the child did not have attachment disorder but got into drugs? Would that have also been the agency's negligence? Perhaps you and your family are the ones who truly need to ask yourselves the question that you are NOT the right candidate to become adopters. I am truly mortified at your statement. This child WILL always feel that she was never wanted. You are blatant in your statement about that just as you say if you were to "give her back" that "you" would be charged with neglect. ABSOLUTELY, what gives YOU the right to decide, regardless of your situation, that this child does not meet YOUR standards. It is individuals like YOU who turn adoption into something so negative, that is the ONLY sham at hand.

I am a birth mother who surrendered her child at 3 wks., my son is now 45. I am also the biological parent of two other children and an adopted son whom we got when he was an adorable 9 mos. old; he is now 40. Based on my own experience, biology counts for, well, almost everything. I NEVER stopped mourning the loss of my relinquished son, and now that we are reunited (1 1/2 yrs. back in each other's lives), the bond that everyone at the time believed would dissolve is extraordinarily deep. He is my son, my flesh and blood, and I love him very deeply, as I do my other children. It saddens me greatly to admit that, much as I love my adopted son, the bond with him is not the same and never has been. It's not that I don't love him; I do (despite many,many difficulties, including his repeated stays in juvenile reform school and adult prison). He is not the same race as the rest of the family, and I'm sure that is a factor. But ask any adopted person if they feel a hole inside, and I would bet a fortune that 99% (maybe even %100) would answer Yes. The son I surrendered never felt loved, never felt he belonged anywhere, until I found him. Seeing him for the first time as a middle-aged man prompted the same response in me as giving birth to my other son and daughter. That immediate surge of maternal devotion is real, physiological, mystical--call it what you will. I grew to love my adopted son the way you grow to love a friend who becomes a lover then a spouse. You can divorce a spouse; you can never sever the maternal-infant bond when it's rooted in genetic identity.

This study is simplistic and flawed, as others have noted. Adoption is a complicated issue, and we have been blind to that fact for a very long time. It has been shrouded in secrecy, commercialized, propagandized, all in the interests of everyone except the birth mother and the child. After my first son was born and lost to me, I lived in New York City, where on a bus one day I saw a poster with a picture of two adorable black babies. The legend beneath it read, "Take two; they're small." I was profoundly touch by that at the age of 22. Today, knowing what I know, it makes me sick.

I actually disagree with you. My name is Rose Macmillan and I'm 28, my brother and his wife passed away 5 years ago so me and my husband (fiancé at the time) adopted their three children.

James was 3 years old. Leith was 2 years old. And Lily was 6 moths old at the time of the tragedy. I loved them from the moment they entered my home and I would die for them.

2 Years later I got pregnant with Harry my third son. 2 years after that I had my twin boys, Oliver and George.

Today James is 8, Leith is 7, Lily is 5. Harry is 3 and Oliver and George are a year and 2 months old. I love both my biological and adopted children, I would die for each and evey one of them. But if I had to chose I would say I have the strongest connection to Leith my adopted child. Leith is just so sweet and so kind hearted. My husband, Killian, is closest to James, my other adopted child. James is more the reckless, trouble making prankster. This may be because we have had longer to bond with them than we did with our biological children.

Or Maybe I love them equally because my adopted children are partially related to me, them being my brothers children. Or maybe because some people say they resemble me. Lily actually has the same red hair as me and the same blue eyes. But James and Leith have dark hair and green eyes. But I dont think so because the twins resemble me as well; Oliver and George both have red hair and blue eyes. Also Harry has light brown hair and blue eyes, like Killian.

Anyway. I love my children equally. If I had to chose, I actually have a closer bond to one of my adopted child than the others, this does not mean I love him anymore than the others. That may change over time but I just can't see myself favoring a child. No matter if they are biological or adopted. But it depends on the family. :)

this comment is a sham! just like when you give birth to your own kids there are NO guarantees in life . your posting made me almost cry for this child did u give up already because life threw you a curve ball. get on the ball love this girl pray for her and dont give up on her she deserves BETTER!

Don't judge. Daily life with a toxic child is not something anyone outside the family can possibly comprehend. This woman is being honest. She deserves more than a rebuke. She acted for the best, and it blew up in her face. When you've walked a mile in her shoes, perhaps you'll show a bit more compassion.

At first I wanted to lash out at you for your cold statements and what appears to me to be your lack of any empathy for your DAUGHTER. For your information, most adopted children suffer from Detachment disorder, whether they are aware of it or not.
In this instance and my own, I WISH there were in place an out for parents like you who end up with a child and later have remorse. You now spend the rest of your life perpetuating this farce of a family, which can only be damaging to all involved. If you would have simply thought it through more carefully before agreeing to become a parent to this child UNCONDITIONALLY, FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE, then possibly this poor child could have gone on to a home that would have been more accepting of her percieved flaws, and you could have waited for your flawless child. My adoptive parents could have returned me to my biological parents or another family like the ones the writer of the main article knows.

I agree adoption reform is desperately overdue, however, as an adoptee myself I must say to you. You are a hypocrite. If you adopt someone it is as if you really did have a natural. With natural children you do not 'select' them for optimal bonding/character/ or personality traits. They are who they are, now and in the future. Shame on you for not loving that child for who they are! I have my own children now and know that you cannot predict or determine a persons abilities, problems or personalities. I am ashamed of you.

I agree with u. i have watched time in and out my older brother treated with more respect, and love then I, just because they felt more of a connection with him,because he is their biological child.I's not fair, but i don't believe it's intentional,I think they just can't help it.

You are quite right. Parents can't help it, which is why I would encourage anyone who considers adopting a child to do so only if there are no biological children already in the family. The best intentions in the world can't undo what nature has wired into us. Adoptive parents can be kind and loving, and biological parents can be cruel, but even abused children who have been removed from their biological parents for their own safety very often reconnect with those parents once the adoptees reach adulthood. The evidence for the tenacity of the blood tie is everywhere in history, literature, anthropology, and family studies. Pretending that an adoptive family is just like every other is a damaging lie. It is the elephant in the room. We don't want it to be true that adopted kids aren't exactly the same as bio ones, so we lie to ourselves and everyone else. Lies cut deep. Only the truth will set you free.

As an Adoptee and as an adoption educator, reformer, and activist, I just did a piece on my blog about this. Unfortunately, many times infertile couples conceive after adopting. This is my case, and my Adoptive brother and I were abused emotionally, mentally, verbally and physically. The biological child was worshiped, loved, and adored. We became unwanted chattel.

This study is flawed, why? Because there are adoptee support groups filled with 100's of adoptees with a similar experience as myself and my brother. It just hasn't been spoken about because the Industry of Adoption profits too greatly off the "sale" (yes I said sale) of children to infertile couples, or couples who can't have more children. They will lie and most agencies are filled with fraudulent adoptions. Google "Adoption Fraud" and see for yourself. Then Google "Abused Adoptees", yeah.

Adult adoptee have now come of age and are speaking out against the horrors of their adoptions to facilitate change in the corrupt system. Are there happy adoptees sure. That doesn't mean there are not huge issues and unfair laws that govern their lives and treat them as property and perpetual children.

I was researching this subject and discovered your comment. My experience is similar to yours in that my parents adopted twice after being told they were infertile but ended up having a natural child later on. Like yourself, my adoptive sibling and I faced emotional, physical, mental and verbal abuse that the biological sibling did not have to deal with. For years I have struggled with my own questions as to how something like this can happen, but the answers I have found makes me want to become an advocate for people in similar situations. Do you have any advice for an aspiring activist as far as a good place to start? It's a subject that I really have a hard time talking about in my own circles but the desire to do something positive and advocate for a better understanding of this phenomenon is extremely important to me.

I am an adoptee who married an adoptee. We have a wonderful child. We got what we got however, had our child been adopted the same would apply. Parents who are bio or not must be good parents and not blame bonding on DNA. We were and are good parents. Therefore, we are proud of our child and our child's accomplishments, personality, loving heart and great/positive personality. Our adoptive parents distilled this in us and we passed it on down. No, we don't feel disconnected from our parents (adoptive) we both always felt loved and wanted...again, so does our child. Would we like some medical history? Yes! ...as we all Say, " So far so good" .....!

I was adopted at three days old. My adoptive parents couldn't have any of their own at the time. Five years later they had a birth child. Everything went down hill from there. I didn't realize it until later on where there love me was. I suffered emotional and mental abuse from my adoptive mother. Once I hit puberty she treated me like Cinderella so to speak. She made sure I watched it every time it came on. I been treated this way ever since. Now that I am married and have grown kids I hardly ever see or speak to her. My sister has her undivided attention. Her love for me is very thin. So in my case they do show more love and attention to their birth children. Although my adoptive father loved me like you wouldn't believe. He died 17yrs ago. How I really miss him so.

I'd be interested in knowing if there are any studies regarding children conceived with donor embryos or both donor egg and donor sperm? These children are the biological children of the mothers who bear them but not their genetic children.

It's certainly horrible that defenceless children have been victimized or murdered ...however, it's still interesting how easily exceptions of a given situation are generalized and presented as the rule...eg..because such as such happened to me...or there was a case in which the child got in to the hands of a criminal..a pedophile..etc

I think adoptive parents give their adoptees more "stuff" because they realize something is missing. I'd say they're trying to buy love to make up for that "little" something - genetic bonding. Buying stuff is especially a good tactic to use with your 18 year old + adopted child, so they don't go looking for mommy.

For the last 13 years, I believed I could not have a child (I was diagnosed as infertile.) I do, however, have a stepdaughter. As long as I have known my stepdaughter, I have loved her; I would not be able to tell you whether the depth or type of my love is equivalent to love for a natural child.

At least, not yet. I recently learned that I'm two months pregnant. I do plan on loving my natural child, and giving it the very best.

And the best guardian I could think of for my miraculous natural child would be my wise, loving, now-married stepdaughter. So I suppose it has a lot to do with the mindset of the marriage in question, and whether they see the production of a natural child as some sort of contest where a non-natural child would always be second-best. How the opportunity to give love and knowledge and nurturing to any child can be considered some kind of booby-prize, I cannot imagine, and it says a lot about the psychological fragility of some "parents" in the modern world.

You said it yourself: your step-daughter is now married-meaning out of the nest. There would be no reason to not love her anymore, because you don't see her as competition for your own child's resources.

You might be feeling a bit differently if she were a 13 year-old.

Not trying to ruin your good feelings, here, just pointing out some biology/psychology.

It's funny how the anti-adoption crowd has jumped on this study. It's sort of like how the creationists said that Satan had placed fossils on the Earth to confuse people. Interestingly, a newly published study from the Netherlands found that adoptive parents are actually less likely to abuse their children. Oh, another Satanic plot...

Leaving abuse out of the discussion, assuming, as I do, that outright abuse is an anomaly, there remains the difference between the connection to a bio child and an adopted one. How many times have you heard a parent say of her child, "Oh, she's just like Aunt Minnie."? Or, "He looks just like his dad."? When my family went for family counseling (two bio kids and one adopted kid of a different race and ethnicity), the idiot therapist asked us all to name the relative or ancestor we most resembled. My adopted son didn't resemble a single person in our extended family, and asking that question only highlighted that truth. When he answered, "No one," she pressed him to answer anyway. That was 30 years ago, and I'm still angry about it. Now I say to my bio son, who was relinquished for adoption 45 years ago, that he looks a lot like my brother and my favorite uncle. He has the same mannerisms as my bio son whom I raised. He is built like my dad and has the athleticism that runs in my family. He relishes knowing those things. He loves it that we look alike, as he has never before in his life looked like anyone. I used to believe love was enough, and it's a lot, to be sure. But there is something very real in knowing who you really are, whom you're really related to, what your family background really is. My son didn't know if he was Jewish, Italian, French, what? Now he knows he's English and Scottish, he knows the family medical history, he feels he truly belongs in THIS family. Adoptive parents who fear their child's finding his birthparents are not acting out of love for their child. I have an adopted son, and I would do anything to help him find his birth mother, because I know that's the only remedy for his loneliness. Sadly, there is no way to trace her.

Too bad you couldn't sit in on some of the adoptee support groups all over social media and offline filled with Adoptees, although they are private some voice their experiences publicly, who have been rejected, abandoned, and abused, and biological children were not. Adoptees are misrepresented in Psychological facilities and in Addiction/Rehab programs proportionally over nonadopted adults/teens. I have worked in Adoption Education, Support, Reform, and Activism for 15 years now. The numbers are in overwhelming support that adoptees are more likely to be sexually, physically, verbally, emotionally, and mentally abused than nonadopted children are. We as adoptees know the truth and understand it's a hard concept to grasp and understand, no one wants to hear about how couples yearn to adopt a child only to reject and abandon them.

How do you measure parents’ love for or "preference ordering” of their children? How could one possibly compare them objectively? If I can afford and am willing to buy my children more material things, it means that I love them more? Even kids who are born to the same parents will tell you that their parents have their favorite.

I don’t think this study is well thought out if it's to find answers to the question whether parents favor natural children over adopted ones.

I wonder how closely you read the first study (I will not reference the second, because the author is a novice and his research methods are suspect)? The first study concludes that adoptive parents may be giving more material items to adoptees to "to compensate for the lack of biological ties and the extra challenges of adoption." So perhaps, adoptive parents give less emotionally to their adopted children - or at least less then they think they should. Out of guilt, they buy things for them. Additionally, if the children such this emotional distance, they may grow up with difficulties that require more adoptive parent intervention.

The only study I am aware of is a review of child abuse stats from Missouri. It concluded adoptees, foster child, and step-children were more likely to die of maltreatment death at 4.7 times the norm. It is not the best study, because it did could not separate the three groups, however, it is the best evidence we have Pediatrics, "Household Composition and Risk of Fatal Child Maltreatment," 2002.

I was adopted and then my adoptive parents found out they were unexpectedly able to have a biological child. As soon as she was born when I was 3 she was favored. She was given private lessons, tutors, schools, colleges, you name it. And I was not. Also I was severely physically abused but she was never harmed. There was alcoholism. I though, did adopt my oldest of 4 children. The other 3 are bio. My daughter was 9 when I adopted her and autistic with some other mental issues as well. She could barely speak. I have always loved her. I probably spend a little more time due to her needs, but my love is equal and all of the kids have lessons and schooling equally. I feel in general though that biological children are indeed favored and that it is human nature. In a very general sense. And that some people are more cut out for adoption than others. And that it is a system based on who can "afford to pay".

I agree with the first poster. The most important aspect adoption agencies care about is the ability to pay the adoption fee.

I once read a study that found that adoptees make up more of a presence in counseling and mental health facilities than their non-adopted counterparts...but the researchers placed the disclaimer on it that Adoptive Parents are more likely to have the money to take their children to seek help and that must be why they were more likely to be treated by a doctor for those things.

Can't you say the same about adoptees being more likely to have material posessions? People really interpret the findings of their research (and the findings of other people's research) however it suits their own bias.

I know several adoptees who felt that they were not treated as well as their brothers and sisters who were biologically raised. The fact of the matter is, we do not know if the bonds are the same between adopted kin and biological kin because we have no way to measure it other than interviewing people and taking their word for it.

While many of us know know we are loved by our parents, for many adoptees, it doesn't feel good to have been a "second-choice" or that adoption was chosen only after their parents had exhausted the option of giving biological birth. The dynamics between why someone adopted and what idealized expectations they may have placed on their adopted child and/or adoption in-general will impact their relationships.

These are not about adoptees being treated poorly but are worth a read:
Cudmore, L. (2005). Becoming parents in the context of loss. Sexual & Relationship Therapy, 20(3), 299-308. doi:10.1080/14681990500141204.

Fisher, A. (2003). Still not quite as good as having your own? Toward a sociology of adoption. Annual Review of Sociology, 29(1), 335-361.

based on my observation, i think there are certain people who are able to love their adopted children just as much as their bio children. However, those are definitely in the minority. I dont mean they dont love their adopted children, but just not as much. This make perfect sense, as most bio parents ( not all of them, unfortunately) would tell you that their love for their bio children are so strong, they are willing to take a bullet for them any time. i think those study he cited are flawed,just because adopted parents spent more time on adopted children doesnt means they are willing to sacrifice themselves in the same way for their bio children, the study should have incl a questionaire asking this type of questions, so much for the tunnel vision of you so called academics.

Nice post , thank you for sharing .........
Most agencies are genuine but never sign on the dotted line before you check out their credentials. Here are a few tips to help you select an experienced Adopting Parents .

I was adopted before my parents realized they could have a biological child. Reading these responses, I see I am not in the minority when I question the article's writer. How did you conduct your research? I grew up hearing the stories of how I almost wasn't adopted because the agency rep came by to conduct a visit prior to my adoption on a day when my adoptive mother was crawling up the front stairs drunk. Somehow that passed the "scrutiny" of the adoption agency . Just for the record, her drunkenness was not temporary and out of character due to stress as was claimed, and it continued. One night she came home drunk and was going to leave with her biological child and leave myself and her adopted son. I was around 7 years old at that time and I'd say that was a pretty good indication of which child was favored and which adopted children were not. We were going to be left behind like garbage. "Chosen for their kindness and commitment" is the most laughable thing I've ever heard. One of my adoptive mother's famous quotes was "I will mop the floor up with you". This was while she was in a bad mood, though, when one of her many sexual affairs was not going well. To this day the biological child has received several vehicles, a grave plot with the parents and their name together on a property, all bills paid....while the adopted son and myself get none of those things. So your research, Mr. Writer is severly flawed. It's more than evident where adopted children rate alongside biological "family". What's sad is that I deserved so much better and it took me until my 40's to understand that. Such a big chunk of a wasted childhood all because Adoption Agencies won't give you all the tools you need, especially the adopted kids. I had no resources or direction. That needs to change.

The usual "adopted kids have it better than genetic kids". Everyone who believes that should give up their own children since it is better. Why don't you want to do what's BEST for your child? To not give it up would just be depriving it of the superior joy of being adopted. How very selfish of you to keep it. And you call yourself good parents!

As an adoptee I can testify first hand adopted parents believe their children are toys, dogs, servants etc. They treat their dogs better than their adopted children.

As I was out homeless at 18 years old (as was my sister who was also adopted). Basically every homeless person I met around my age was adopted. They all had the same story as me... Adopted by some rich infertile couple. Adoptive father resented them and just called them a little bastard on a daily basis and belittled them for being adopted. Adopted mother inevitably made up a list of "behavioral problems".

These adoption agencies advertise adoption like it's disney world. Get these rich folks all pumped up for the perfect fairytale family. Then it's just a regular kid, and the mother hates the child for not fulfilling her slew of fantasies. And proceeds to drop any pretense of motherhood and neglect and bully her adopted children.

Adoption is slavery. If you aren't adopted your opinion is irrelevant. If you work for the adoption industry you're a disgusting human being who should rot in hell.

If I spent billions of dollars I'm sure I could purchase all types of nonsense statistics. Even build my own BS statistic reporting agency/bureau.

Adoption is human trafficking, baby-selling. Spun into something seemingly legitimate, but it's no different than run of the mill black-market baby dealing.

Try what you went through plus having to grow up adopted with a biological sibling who is treated like a prince. I also was homeless for a bit at the same age. I agree with you and it really pisses me off that these people tout adoption as the cure all.